But Horace must submit also to the more impartial judgment of time. Of
the two innovations which gave him relief against the general
background, one was the amplification of the crude but vigorous satire
of Lucilius into a more perfect literary character, and the other was
the persuasion of the Greek lyric forms into Roman service. Both
examples had their important effects within the hundred years that
followed on Horace's death.
The satire and epistle, which Horace hardly distinguished, giving to
both the name of _Sermo_, or "Talk," was the easier to imitate. Persius,
dying in the year 62, at the age of twenty-eight, was steeped in Horace,
but lacked the gentle spirit, the genial humor, and the suavity of
expression that make Horatian satire a delight. In Juvenal, writing
under Trajan and Hadrian, the tendency of satire toward consistent
aggressiveness which is present in Horace and further advanced in
Persius, has reached its goal. With Juvenal, satire is a matter of the
lash, of vicious cut and thrust. Juvenal may tell the truth, but the
smiling face of Horatian satire has disappeared. With him the line of
Roman satire is extinct, but the nature of satire for all time to come
is fixed.
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